By Matthew Hassan Kukah
Dr. Reuben Abati is 60. This means he is much younger than our dear country Nigeria. However, his accomplishments in this very short period of time is one of the reasons why I am proud of what our country will still achieve, what my friend, Dr. Kayode Fayemi has described as Nigeria’s unfinished greatness. However, looking back, we must admit that standards have fallen in terms of what young Nigerians achieved before now especially in the area of the media. Remember the debonair, pacesetting Okpanam born, Chris Okolie who, at the age of 26, founded the scintillating Newbreed Magazine. Nduka Obaigbena followed by starting The Week at the age of 23. Peter Enahoro edited the Daily Times at the age of 24. Ernest Ikoli edited the Daily Times at a tender age. Anthony Enahoro was 26 when he moved the motion for Nigeria’s independence. Joseph Tarka entered the House of Representatives at the age of 26. So, when did the discount hunters come from? What happened? Today, an over 30 year old man or woman will have great difficulties becoming an Editor. Is the problem with the system or with the youths? Whatever it is, it is settled that a generation must seize its moment or lose history’s tide.
Shakespeare says so in Julius Caesar:
“There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.”
(Act IV, Scene iii)
2: To reload is to start afresh. Nigeria’s “reload” must begin in the mind — a moral and imaginative renewal. In Milton’s Paradise Lost, we are told that “The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” There are very many reasons why Nigeria must re-load. A marksman reloads for many reasons. First, he may have failed in his first attempt. May be the gun was not loaded. Maybe the gun was loaded but he was not good enough. Or, perhaps his object moved. Whatever may be the reasons for failure, you re-load and hope to correct the mistakes you may have made. You then go ahead to try again. Hitler was a lucky man. The 42 attempts to kill him all failed. No matter how many times we fail, we must continue to try.
3: I encourage us to reload because missed targets offer us opportunities to rethink and recreate new options and opportunities. Francis Bacon said so: “He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.” No matter how much one loves this country, we cannot explain away all the opportunities we have missed. Although we cannot turn back the hands of time, as they say, even a bad clock is right twice a day. However, we can at least attempt to journey together as pilgrims of hope, learning from the mistakes of the past and seeking to dream new dreams. National greatness lies in identifying and correcting past mistakes, not focusing on recrimination and self-flagellation.
3. Nationalism, it is said, requires memory, and memory requires reverence. Nineteenth Century Canadian poet and journalist, Joseph Howe, had a counsel here: “A wise nation preserves its records, gathers up its monuments, decorates the tombs of its illustrious dead, repairs its greatest structures and fosters national pride and love of country by perpetual references to the sacrifices and glories of the past.” The Chinese celebrate their one-year long march that covered about 6000 kilometers. The Voortrekkers Monument in Kwazulu Natal, South Africa, stands as testimony of the victory of the 464 Afrikaaners who, on December 16th, 1836 (known as the day of the vow), defeated over 20,000 Zulus at the Battle of the Blood River and took over the land! July 4th is America’s independence day because that is the day that the Declaration of Independence was adopted. Thanksgiving Day celebrated on the last Thursday of every November, draws inspiration from the first action by the pilgrim fathers and their local Indian population way back in 1621. Normandy Day is marked every June 6th every year to remember the military operations that ended with the defeat of the Nazis. These events often re-enkindle memories that help to inspire and reinforce nationalism. Edmund Burke in ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’ wrote that “People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.” Nationalism is a tree that must be watered. Can you name one single event that Nigerians get excited about?
4. Nigeria is a nation of paradox; a nation of greatly gifted people full of potential, yet we are a mass of people mired in disillusionment. Why? We look at our politics and we wonder, will we ever get it right? What stories, myths or memories does Nigeria have to inspire patriotism among us? Which sacrifices and labours of our leaders past can we draw inspiration from? Nigeria has become a country permanently on a boiler plate of self-doubt and almost self-abnegation. A country at war with itself. We think about the endless border wars, the severe fracture even in social networks and we wonder, when will we all live in peace among ourselves? When will we create minimum standards of welfare that will ensure that we can take the basic things of a good life for granted. For example, safe maternal and infant maternal environments, ending hunger and destitution, basic standard of education for all our children? We ask, when will the almost 60,000 abandoned projects spread across Nigeria ever be completed? Given the staggering rate and range of our economic hemorrhage through illicit financial flows, we ask ourselves, when will we achieve some level of economic equilibrium? With citizens retreating into the womb of ethnicity, with religion becoming the source of inspiration for violence and death, our questions are many and all-encompassing with very little answers. It is an open question whether can successfully reach a finishing line. Perhaps, in the end, we have to come to terms with the fact that there are really no final destination in the dream of nations. In the end, it is more a question of holding together and believing that no matter the turbulence, our eyes are still set on the dreams of building a united nation.
5: Perhaps we may need to ask questions such as, where did all go wrong? Or was it wrong from the beginning? If so, which beginning? We know that every modern country today has its own peculiar history. None has been free from the savagery of conquerors, oppressors, or enslavers. If we are to start from the beginning, we will have to start from the Garden of Eden. Yet, even there, no sooner had God placed the first two human creatures Adam and Eve in the garden than trouble started over obedience to just one commandment. The first family had only two children, yet, with no external provocation from any neighbour, the first murder took place. Here, we draw the first lesson that, living together even as a family has its challenges. A peaceful Nigeria should be measured not by the absence of problems, rather, the existence of platforms that enable citizens to feel a sense of fairness.
6: Nations live with the oxygen that they draw from the myths of identity, myths of great men and women who came before. The myths are often constructed around their struggles. They become the vehicles for legitimation and validation, their memories inspire sacrifice and pride. Telling and re-telling them inspires the next generation and they become embedded in memory and often form part of what is called, civil religion. These myths and the telling of them help to inspire the next generation which often passes them to the next generation. This is what Moses meant when he enjoined the people of Israel to remember the word of God; when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them on your hands, and between your eyes. You shall write them on them on the doorpost of your house (Dt. 6: 7-8). Every country today speaks about the dreams or the visions of its founding fathers, those men and women whose sacrifices brought them to where they are. Some of these men and women have been elevated almost to the status of demigods. Legitimacy of certain decisions has to be aligned to the thinking of these great men and women. Myths and anthologies are often deployed to ensure that their lives continue to inspire the nation. Today, think of the lessons of the great Nelson Mandela.
7: When the United States of America speak of their founding fathers, they refer to; Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, John Jay, Alex Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson. Despite his fame, Abraham Lincoln is not considered a founding father as he came much later. Their memories are sustained against the backdrop of the myths constructed about them over time. These founding fathers gave the country the Declaration of Independence (1776) and wrote the nation’s Constitution (1878. Independence came after almost a hundred years. However, the inspiration for what forms the foundations of America values derives from multiple sources.
8: Primarily, the Bible formed the furnace upon which all the inspiration of the founding fathers was hammered. Along with the Bible was the inspiration derived from philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Jock Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Montesquieu, Immanuel Kant, Jean Jacques Rosseau, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Paine among many others. These philosophers propounded different theories about life, death, society, government, peace, war and justice. They debated the role of the state, ensuring individual safety and the pursuit of happiness. Was society above or beneath government? People like John Locke believed that society was more important than government and that the business of government was to protect the freedom of the individual, hence the notion of limited government.
9: Issues of freedom, the individual and government have dominated politics. For example, how much of human freedom can the state take from the individual and for what? Rosseau, due to the circumstances of his personal life, feared freedom and believed that more power should be in the hands of the state. Ceding much power to the people could lead to anarchy and mob violence. The Leviathan, as he called the state, should be given so much power that it can enjoy unlimited protection. Left on his own devices, Rosseau argued, individuals could descend to a state of nature where, unrestrained, life could be nasty, brutish and short. Philosophers like Immanuel Kant share Rosseau’s sentiments because he argued for total obedience to the state’s authority on the grounds that either way, it was better to have even a bad state with bad laws than to have no state and no laws! Successive governments in the United States have revolved around these values.
10: The 1630 sermon of John Winthrop, first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony, an English Puritan lawyer provided the foundation for the development of these moral sentiments on which the founding fathers would continue to build. It was in the sermon that he conceived of the new colony as a city on the hill, drawing inspiration from the exhortation of Jesus that a city set on a hill cannot be hidden (Mt. 5:14). Drawing from Prophet Micah, he enjoined his people in the sermon to act justly, love tenderly and to walk humbly with our God. These sentiments account for the deep moral fibre of the American polity. Today, these sentiments formed the moral foundation for such expressions in the American public psyche as: In God we Trust, Manifest destiny, God’s own country,
11: Subsequently, after the war, the Declaration of Independence evokes these emotions when it said: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Today, America holds these values and vision with near sacredness. They provide the guardrails for ensuring the preservation of the vision of their founding fathers. They account for the near sacredness attached to the Constitution. Taken together with the principles of separation of powers, they have made the country the most powerful nation on earth, whatever may be the controversies of the moment.
12: The Chinese on the other hand have built their civilization and by extension the social and political fabric of their country around the philosophical teachings of Confucius, the 5th century Chinese philosopher. The Analects, the collection of some of his teachings read like the Book of Wisdom in the Bible. For example, in what sounds almost like the golden rule, Confucius says, Never impose on others what you will not choose for yourself. Drawing from Confucius, the Chinese have developed their politics around what is called, the Doctrine of the Mean. The philosophy of the mean enjoins people to avoid excesses and extremes, to seek balance and moderation. Using the pendulum as a model, this teaching assumes that extremism should be avoided while balance and equilibrium should be sought. Virtue is what helps to manage these extremes. This is why, even though China is a multiparty Democracy, it has ensured that its so-called Democracy functions within the boundaries of doctrine of the mean, seeing opposition as an extreme from the mean.
13: Many people will be surprised to hear that China can claim to have a multiparty political system. Yes, they do. These parties are little surrogates who survive on the basis of what the Chinese Communist Party, CCP, calls, multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the CCP. Yes, China is a multi-party country and there is even one party called, China Democratic League. The only right that these parties have is the right to accept the supremacy of the CCP. We can go on and on about other countries around the world. The point here is that every country has its history.
14: So, coming to our country Nigeria, the question now is, who are our founding fathers? What was the founding philosophy? What is it about their lives that we can hold up to for inspiration today? As a former British colony, Nigeria’s history of growth and development reads quite differently. Written largely in the smoke-filled rooms of British subterfuge, some of these intrigues have been well documented in very many books. The Harold Smith Story: A Squalid End to Empire tells part of this gory story. Dele Ogun’s A Fatherless People demonstrates how Nigeria came to be an ideological orphan, lacking in a source of moral authority for its national development. Mr. Ogun speaks eloquently about things that might have been in our politics, had the British not done all they did to manipulate outcomes to favour northern Nigeria. We are still paying the price. “Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past” (George Orwell:1984).
15: In form and content, we have remained what the British sculpted of us. For example, while in the United Kingdom as a student, Mr. Obafemi Awolowo had fallen under the spell of Fabianism. This left-wing group made up of Socialists who congregated around its philosophy would later become the launch pad for the Labour Party. The Fabian Society founded the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1895. It inspired such legendary leaders like Jawaharl Nehru and Lee Kwan Yew, 50 former Heads of States and 20 Nobel Laureates. Such a man like Awolowo, inspired by the Labour Party would naturally have struck anxiety to Harold McMillan of the Conservative Party who was then the British Prime Minister as Nigeria prepared for independence. Mr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, having been exposed to the radical politics of the United States (itself a former British colony) posed a similar threat. These explain the maneuverings that ensured that neither of these two emerged to lead Nigeria after independence.
16: Today, we all recall the anecdotal account of the imagined conversation between Nnamdi Azikiwe and the Sardauna regarding the future of the country. As it went, Nnamdi Azikiwe pleaded with Sardauna that they should sink their differences in other to build a united nation together. The Sardauna was said to have told Nnamdi Azikiwe that it was more important to understand the differences rather than forgetting them. The difference between forgetting and remembering still haunts us till date. Today, these three key leaders were unable to reconcile their differences and find areas of agreement beyond merely struggling for independence. Even at that, the famous crisis around the date for Nigeria’s independence between the three, the debate between the Sardauna’s as soon as possible position and the famous Tony Enahoro’s motion for independence in 1956.
19: For example, in the case of India, the British bowed to pressure from the Muslim minority and decided to create Pakistan for the Muslims. Nigerians vehemently rejected this choice and pooh-poohed against what they called then, the Pakistanisation of Nigeria. The Minority ethnic groups in the Middle Belt and in Southern Nigeria were suffocating from the asphyxiating chokehold of the dominant ethnic groups in the north, east and west. In response to their pleas, the British set up what they called, a Minority’s Commission in 1958 to enquire into the fears of Minorities. Their brief was to listen to the fears of these minorities and figure out how to allay them. The creation of the Mid-West in 1963 was not done in good faith because the real idea was to reduce Chief Awolowo’s influence in the region. The fears of the northern Minorities over the threat to their cultural and religious identity were ignored because the northern region claimed that their fears would be addressed. When we look back now, we must ask, could things have been different from what they are today?
20: As we prepare to re-load, what are the key issues for today? There will of course be as many answers as those that are asked. I will try to conclude by identifying just three or so key areas that I believe we need to focus on. First, is the problem of national cohesion which has remained, as I have said elsewhere, an illusion. Our coat of arms loudly proclaims, Unity & Faith, Peace & Progress. I leave you to rank which of these ideals we have been able to achieve. We have neither unity nor faith, neither peace nor have we made progress commensurate with our opportunities. I am not about to offer you the answers, but what I wish to do here is to say, if we are to re-load, what must we do differently? Our inability to successfully achieve any of these ideals is what we now call insecurity. To that extent, it is plausible to argue that our insecurity is the result of our lack of unity and faith which have made peace and progress impossible. To re-load, I propose we look at five key themes
21: First, what is the future of our Constitutional Democracy? Ours has been a severely flawed Democracy by every stretch of the imagination. I do not know if we can find consolation in the fact that the crisis around Democracy is itself an international malaise. If it is any consolation, a recent Pew Foundation survey examined the state of Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction with Democracy around the world. The revelations show that Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, all registered a median of 64% adults saying they are dissatisfied with Democracy while 35% said that they were satisfied. Only two African countries are measured in the survey and they are, Kenya and South Africa which both registered between 58% and 63% dissatisfaction and against 42% and 33% satisfaction respectively. On dissatisfaction with Democracy, it is interesting that India ranks the highest with 23%, followed by Sweden which is 25%.
22: In a Washington Times article on the 24th October, 2025, titled, Democracy Faces a Crisis of Faith, Dr. Fareed Zakarias concluded that: Fifty years ago, people doubted their governments. Today, they doubt each other. The next democratic revival will not come from clever managers or technocratic reforms. It will come from a rediscovery of trust—the invisible rule that makes all others possible. Until we can believe again that the referee is trying to be fair, we will keep shouting ‘Ref, you suck!’ at our own democracy— and then wonder why the game no longer feels worth playing.
23: Democratic reversals should be seen as temporary and we must work hard to renew our peoples’ faith in it, despite its many flaws. With all its flaws, our commitment to Democracy as a people is irreversible as we can see from the cold reactions to the recent news of a purported military coup. This same coldness is seen in the lack of enthusiasm about the Sahelian states of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. What we need to do is to think more seriously about the nature of the choices and the processes that drive Democracy. Here, I mean Political Parties and Electoral Management Bodies.
24: There is a lot of talk about the need for free, fair and credible elections. It is however important to note that although free, fair and credible elections are necessary, they are not sufficient to guarantee or deliver on good governance and what we have come to loosely refer to as dividends of Democracy. For example, on July 29, 1981, the world stood still as millions around the world were glued to the television as they watched Prince Charles and Lady Diana get married at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. It was, you would say, with the pomp and pageantry, one of the greatest events of that year, and, a fairytale marriage made in heaven as they say. Fifteen years later, precisely on August 28, 1996, the marriage ended in divorce! So, outcomes are often not determined by processes.
25: The challenge to our Democracy is the conduct and lack of honesty and sincerity by the political actors who have come to see politics as a ladder that can be used to ascend to higher office. Electoral malfeasance has been inserted into the process. Accountability still remains a serious problem. However, one of the most troubling problems is the issue of the culture of defections by elected officials who are often driven by a sense of opportunism and the need to be close to honey pot of power. We will not resolve these matters merely by moral appeal. Amendments to our electoral laws must go beyond merely tinkering with the laws. The amendments in the laws must identify, isolate and target certain remedies. I will use two examples from Ghana to illustrate the point.
26: Under the Ghana Election Commission for example, once you cross the carpet, you lose your seat and elections in which the defector cannot contest, must hold within 42 days for a replacement. Second, the Speaker of the Parliament is appointed by the President not elected by the House. The appointment can come from even outside the political parties. In this way for example, the idea that defectors must write to the Speaker can be remedied.
27: The second issue is what to do with the Constitution or the spirit of Constitutionalism, the secular scriptural text that must provide moral guidance for the affairs of state. Largely, Constitutional Amendment has become a project and a ritual of each National Assembly. In a provocative Memo, my friend, Olisa Agbakoba has likened the process as merely repairing a cracked foundation with patches. In his view, 25 years of Constitutional tinkering has produced no transformation. The result is that Elections occur, but power remains concentrated. Parties exist, but without genuine ideological differentiation. A Constitution governs but without federal substance. His proposals, he argues, if accepted can see Nigeria itself with a budget of N500 trillion Naira capacity. He proposes that his project should form the basis for interrogation of candidates in the 2027 elections.
28: Although I am persuaded by the strength of the argument, his arguments focus on assumptions that do not address realistically, the nature of the field of play. The questions for the 2027 elections may not be exhaustive, but they mistake the cause for the consequence. We are supposed to ask all candidates, if they will deliver on the enlisted items. All the 10 questions start with, Will you…? It is like asking a groom on the altar, will you love this woman, will you be faithful to her? Of course this is the easy part and he will naturally simply tick yes in all the boxes. Elections are a process and they are different from governance. A wedding is a ceremony. It is not a marriage. The real part is living out the words uttered. And here, Agbakoba’s thesis should focus not on asking the “will you” question, but the “how” question. The text also does not address the resistant nature of the landscape that is suffused with such cultural anomalies as Democracy sitting side by side with traditional institutions, especially given that today, in the northern states, at least, they are already taking a chunk of local government resources. It is an exceptionally well written memo and should provoke a conversation. If it is not to be a mere talkshop, Dr Agbakoba must define the processes of his team selection.
29: What leaders do we need, who do we need, where and when? It is tempting to ask if the age of the strong man, the dictator, the autocrat, the one who brooked no nonsense, the one whose word was law are gone. The answer is no, because in the words of Anne Applebaum in her book, ‘Autocracy Inc: The Dictators who want to Rule the World’, says, there is a network of dictators who share common interests and not common ideology. Nowadays, autocracies are not run by one bad guy but by sophisticated networks relying on kleptocratic financial structures, a complex of security services, military and paramilitary, police and technological experts who provide surveillance, propaganda and disinformation.
30: We need a Judiciary that spends less energy on becoming what Chidi Odinkalu calls a Selectorate which topples the will of the people. In the book, ‘The Selectorate: When Judges Topple the People’, Prof Odinkalu argues that: “the judiciary has evolved from constrained arbiters over political disputes to unconstrained determinants of the location and site for the mandate of to rule…the Judiciary has relocated the site of electoral legitimacy from voters to judges and from the ballot box to the court room.”
31: The judiciary needs to be extricated from the tangled web of politics. There is need to find the means to make the judiciary focus more on securing the rights to justice for our people. Nigeria needs another arm of the judiciary dedicated to delivering Justice to the politicians and their parties. We need a more robust engagement between the Bar and the Bench in extending the frontiers of Justice to our people. Bodies like the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, NCAAP, and recently, the Black Lives Matter Movement have all demonstrated that with activist Judges of the Supreme Court such as Thurgood Marshall, the ‘Notorious’ Ruth Bader Ginsberg all of blessed memory, the frontiers of Justice can be extended.
32: Nigeria needs a mapping programme that tries to use effective intelligence to forecast and geolocate its strategic place in the world. So far, we seem to have no roadmap for positioning ourselves and helping to lift up Africa. All this idea of government by marabouts, shamans, all this blood of sacrifice of protective gear against enemies, slaughtering of cross bred cows, donkeys, camels, cats with three legs, one eye, no tail, black tongue and so on will not cut it.
32: Nigeria needs to address the issues of values, the kind of values that could have helped to find a moral balance in our chaotic social world. Asian politicians, intellectuals and businessmen have sought to embed these teachings in their fabric of their society. The Chinese, are inspired by the teachings of Confucius. These teachings focus on family, respect for elders, obedience to cultural norms, etiquette, moral uprightness and virtue and contribution to social harmony. Indians on the other hand, for the Indians, their moral orbit revolves around the Mahabhrata and the Upanishad which constitute some of the theology around Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism. The Japanese concept of seppuku is based on the notion of shame. This is what drove Roh Myu-hun to take his own life in 2009 when he was accused of corruption. Asian scholars and statesmen such as Amartya Sen and Mohammed Mahathir have debated the idea of Asian values in contrast with those of the west. For example, some countries have argued that rather than dwelling on Gross National Product as a way of measuring development, they propose a measurement of Gross National Happiness, GNH as a basis of development. These debates are important for framing and laying down long lasting development strategies that ensure that mere infrastructures do not replace human beings.
33: For us in Nigeria, our political life is bereft of African cultural input, largely because of the way we approached western civilization and modernity. Today, the idea of Ubuntu (I am because you are) has been bandied as a way of defining who we are as Africans. This is in sharp contrast to the xenophobia that has been the hallmark of life in South Africa. African politics has tended to shy away from a rigorous and scientific review of what we consider to be our culture. Rather than rigorous scholarship, African politics tends to lapse into the dark world of shamanism, sorcery, charms, where the marabouts hold sway through their incantations.
34: To re-load our politics, Nigeria needs to rethink how to rescue our country from the clutches of the dark forces of all forms of extremist ideologies. If Nigeria does not confront the demon of weaponized religion, we may have no country because those who weaponize religion are a greater danger to the religion itself. Nigeria must be a country of one people under one law. To this end, I again appeal to the President. He went to court to cure the injustice that has encouraged corruption in regards to the funds of Local Government Councils. He should go to the Supreme Court to seek a proper interpretation of the implications of the adoption of Sharia Courts in the 12 northern states. Victims of the manipulation of religion constitute over 90% of believers. The encircling steps of the angels of death and doom are here. We have been calling and crying for years. Northern Christians raised these issues before independence, but political expediency by the British colonial state denied them fair hearing. Now, this demon has come back to haunt us. If Nigeria does not kill the dragon of religious extremism, it will be only a matter of time before we become a larger Gaza. Supremacists who hide under religion must have no place in our social and political life. The time to deal with this problem is now, the place to start is here. So, thank you, President Donald Trump for the blowout and throwing an unexploded hand grenade our way. I hope we have a chance to act before it explodes. All Nigerians must walk tall and confident through the length and breadth of this great land.
• Excerpts from keynote address delivered at the 60th birthday celebration of Dr Reuben Abati at the National Institute for International Affairs, Victoria Island, Lagos on 7th November, 2025.
